“I dare say they think I am jealous,” Everard said to himself with a laugh that was not merry, and went away to his own room, and beginning to arrange his things for departure, meaning to leave next day. He had no need to stay there to swell Herbert’s triumph, he who had so long acted as nurse to him without fee or reward. Not quite without reward either, he thought, after all, rebuking himself, and held up his hand and looked at it intently, with a smile stealing over his face. Why should he interfere to save Herbert from his own vanity and folly? Why should he subject himself to the usual fate of Mentors, pointing out Scylla on the one side and Charybdis on the other? If the frail vessel was determined to be wrecked, what had he, Everard, to do with it? Let the boy accomplish his destiny, who cared? and then what could Reine do but take refuge with her natural champion, he whom she herself had appointed to stand in her place, and who had his own score against her still unacquitted? It was evidently to his interest to keep out of the way, to let things go as they would. “And I’ll back Giovanna against Sophy,” he said to himself, half jealous, half laughing, as he went to sleep. As for Herbert, he lounged into the great hall, where some lights were still burning, with his sister, and found Miss Susan there, pale with fatigue and the excitement past but triumphant. “I hope you have not tired yourself out,” she said. “It was like those girls to lead you out into the night air, to give you a chance of taking cold. Their father would like nothing better than to see you laid up again: but I don’t give them credit for any scheme. They are too feather-brained for anything but folly.” “Do you mean our cousins Sophy and Kate?” said Herbert with some solemnity, and an unconscious attempt to overawe Miss Susan, who was not used to anything of this kind, and was unable to understand what he meant. “I mean the Farrel-Austin girls,” she said. “Riot and noise and nonsense are their atmosphere. I hope you do not like this kind of goings on, Reine?” The brother and sister looked at each other. “You have always disliked the Farrel-Austins,” said Herbert, bravely putting himself in the breach. “I don’t know why, Aunt Susan. But we have no quarrel with the girls. They are very nice and friendly. Indeed, Reine and I have promised to go to them on Friday, for two or three days.” He was three and twenty, he was acknowledged master of the house; but Herbert felt a certain tremor steal over him, and stood up before her with a strong sense of valor and daring as he said these words. “Going to them on Friday--to the Farrel-Austins’ for three or four days! then you do not mean even to go to your own parish church on your first Sunday? Herbert,” said Miss Susan, indignantly, “you will break Augustine’s heart.”